


Bend in the River of Fate

by Graywand



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Astra Militarum | Imperial Guard (Warhammer 40.000), Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Culture Shock, Gen, Grimdark, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, Ordo Xenos (Warhammer 40.000), Space Marines, Tyranids (Warhammer 40.000)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28104852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Graywand/pseuds/Graywand
Summary: Aang was meant to bring peace to the World. The Galaxy has other ideas. Taken over (and revised) with the generous permission of Solvdrage
Kudos: 6





	Bend in the River of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> With the generous permission of the author, I have taken over the long moribund (over ten years) Avatar: The Last Airbender/Warhammer 40K crossover Bend in the River of Fate first published on fanfiction.net in 2009 and last updated in 2010.
> 
> Which will be a challenge. I have loved Warhammer 40K since my dad brought home the third edition boxset when I was nine years old. Yet I've never actually written for Warhammer before. I hope I do justice to it. Even if I did make changes to the original plan, mostly to bring it up to post-Fall of Cadia.
> 
> I'm also not giving up on Beneath the Raptor's Wings by any means.

"The Imperium! How mighty its aspect! How far-reaching its boundaries! As one world dies, ten more are bought into the fold! Fear us, for we count the lives of planets, not men!"

-Cardinal Morius Blate, Ecclesiarch Primus

Prologue: The Distant Darkness

"Fall back to Bulkhead Zwei-2! By the Emperor, fall back!" Sergeant Zhoq bellowed as he backpedaled down the darkened, blood-spattered corridor. His order was almost drowned out by the screams of the panicked civilian refugees and the brave Imperial soldiers dying to buy the innocent citizens time to escape the slaughterhouse. The bloody remains of dozens of refugees coated the walls of the small tramp freighter. A pair of armsmen was in the process of reloading when the hideous beast fell upon them. Corporal Tahan managed to raise his lasrifle to his shoulder before his was impaled by one of the wicked scything talon of the Genestealer. The hideous pink creature's second talon cleaved the second armsmen, a press-ganged girl barely sixteen, nearly in half lengthwise. Gunfire echoed through the hanger of the _Retribution_ -class ship as murdered Cadia's brave soldiers and naval armsmen dueled the vile Tyranid bioconstructs. Royal purple ichor flowed from the gaping wounds in the chitin of the Genestealer. Zhoq and the surviving soldiers and refugees cheered as the xenos' final spasm escaped its body.

The cheers of thousands of refugees and Imperial Guardsmen filled the cavernous ship's hangar. None were louder than those of Nathaniel Zhoq. He had been fighting Orks upon Hendrick's World when the news came that the darkness spewing out of the Eye of Terror had, after ten thousand years of blood and fire, laid his strong, resilient, beloved homeworld low. Which wasn't going to keep him, his men and women, or the refugees in _Aquila Eternus_ 's hold alive for a few more minutes, of course.

All at once the cheers of triumph surrounding them had transmuted to screams of horror as a hideous, purple-chitined horror descended the gangplank like a visiting dignitary. Great talons exuding from the hideous monstrosity's back cutting down refugees in sprays of blood even as their backswing tore great gashes in the battered freighter's hull.

Sergeant Zhoq wasted no time. "Corporal Yrut take the men! Get the civilians out of the hanger and seal the doors!"

His burly, swarthy fireteam leader nodded his attention, barking orders to his men and women and pushing the throng of terrified men, women, and children towards the hanger doors, even as they prayed loud, panicked prayers to the God-Emperor.

Zhoq's shout filled the chamber as he charged the Tyranid warrior beast, his own counter-challenge to its screams. His eyes widened as his peripheral vision revealed that an entire fireteam of voidsmen, the dedicated soldiers of the Imperial Navy, had chosen to stand with him, rust colored armor glinting in the dimly lit bay's lights. The venom cannon in its grub-white hands belched green acid. Zhoq lurched to a halt as the screams of the brave men and women who'd chosen to fight with him surrounded him. They were melting under the acid, armor collapsing to the floor as they fell to the ground in a puddle of half-liquified bone, flesh, and organs.

Shock and horror nearly brought the veteran soldier of the Astra Militarum to his knees. He gazed up at towering monstrosity, and a strange stillness filled him even as dozens of those hideous small rippers swarmed down the gangplank behind the warrior.

Somehow, he found the strength to stand, leveling his lasrifle at the monsters that would tear him to pieces. He hadn't been there when his homeworld needed him, but he would not let the memory of his fallen brothers and sisters down.

 _"Cadia stands_!"

* * *

Inquisitor Leyland Gathos of the Ordo Xenos watched the skirmish in the hanger through the pict-feed from the bridge of the _Aquila Eternus_ with a sense of pride. He would always remember the actions of Sergeant Nathaniel Zhoq. It was the blood of men and women such as him that gave humanity any hope of surviving in a galaxy seemingly determined to destroy it.

That and the Master of Mankind. Who watched over the human race from His ascension on the Golden Throne. Even now, he thought silent prayers to the Emperor as he made one of those damnably hard decisions all members of the Emperor's Most Holy Inquisition had to make.

"Admiral," he ordered, turning to face Admiral Niall Cisernos, the commander of what was left of the Imperial Navy battlegroup defending Ackras Prime. "Have that hangar bay vented into space."

The tall, fair-skinned powerfully built man with brown hair and eyes bowed to him before crossing the vast bridge with its tall high windows to the smaller dark-skinned woman with dark brown hair. "Captain Tanda," he ordered his flag captain, in the same blue-gold naval uniform he wore. "Open hangar Zwei-Seven-One to space."

"Aye, aye Admiral," she said, giving the formal naval acknowledgment of an order before snapping her fingers at one of the lowly menials who entered the appropriate command.

The pict-feed at the station the Inquisitor had claimed as his own changed to show the tramp freighter _Ward of Lenton_ being ripped out into the void as if the hand of the Emperor Himself had reached through the warp and torn it out. The outgassing took Imperial fighters, tyranid beasts, the fallen guardsmen and voidsmen who had given their lives in this ship's defense with her….

It was the most beautiful sight he had seen in weeks and the psychic death screams of the Tyranid creature was musical to Leyland's warp senses. As he watched, the _Retribution_ -class battleship fired her maneuvering thrusters as she positioned herself.

Admiral Cisneros approached him and bowed. "My Lord," his deep rumbling voice said. "All ships are in position. However General Harcyn reports that a column of Imperial Guards is approaching the last active spaceport on the planet. He's requesting more time."

"Tell him his request is denied, his men and women will find their way to the Emperor…and open a channel to the fleet."

As Admiral Cisneros saw to his orders, Inquisitor Gathos walked over to the vast windows, looking out at the dying world below. Fires lit up every continent as the planet's cities burned, first from the battles against the perfidious xenos cult that had risen up in fire and blood on every continent. Then from the Hive Fleet descending on them. By some miracle, the fleet had managed to defeat the tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan warship analogs, but the planet below them could not be saved. Even now other hideous bioships were descending to take on the planet's biomass. Biomass to grow more xenos abominations, stronger and more adaptable than ever before. That could not be allowed.

But even now tens of millions of civilians still hid in those burning cities and towns. And millions more men and women of the Astra Militarum fought back-to-back against the horrors that had engulfed the world. Hoping against hope that they could still win, could still drive back the hordes before them.

"Channel open, my Lord."

He took a deep breath. "In fealty to the God-Emperor, our undying Lord, and by the grace of the Golden Throne, I declare Exterminatus upon the Imperial world of Ackras.I hereby sign the death warrant of an entire world and consign a million souls to oblivion. May Imperial Justice account in all balance. The Emperor Protects."

Exterminatus. The very word sent shivers down the spines of those who knew of the existence of the order. It was used only as a last resort, when allowing a world that had fallen to the alien, the mutant, and the heretic to survive would damn other worlds to the same fate. When reclaiming such a world was simply too costly. Ackras was such a world.

From every ship, launchers fired the terrible weapons that had been chosen to execute this world. The virus bombs launched from every ship entered the atmosphere and exploded in great orange-red mushroom clouds visible to everyone looking out a window. As the Life Eater virus spread across the surface, infecting every lifeform, from the screeching hordes of tyranid monstrosities filling the skies and valleys, to the soldiers fighting them, to the civilians hiding in their basements and homes waiting for the end.

They all died in minutes as the virus broke them down into organic sludge. Even the bioships descending for their feast exploded in bright explosions as their very cells denatured.

Hanging in orbit, the vast battleships, as much cathedral as warships, with their crews in the hundreds of thousands, belched yellow-white energy from their starboard lances towards the planet. The atmosphere, choked with the methane and other volatile gasses from the death of every living thing, flashed to terrible orange life.

And so, a world died in a firestorm. Consumed, it seemed from the airless void, in silence.

But such silence was not shared in the Immaterium. The psychic death flare of an entire world ever so briefly flared brighter than even the Astronomican to the ever-increasing population of those who could sense it. In the tumult of the Warp, cackling daemons feasted on the bloodshed and suffering. Not just on this world but on uncounted other worlds who's doom had come crashing down upon them when Abbadon laid Cadia low.

On a distant and isolated world, a boy with unnatural sensitivity looked to the stars, writhing in their agony, and wept.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> This author replies to comments. If you would not like to receive a reply, please sign it "whisper."


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